The present invention is directed to a magneto-resistive (MR) head, and more particularly, to an MR head having a selectively placed low reluctance path between shields of the MR head.
Recently, memory storage devices have employed heads including MR elements (i.e., an MR head) to read and write data from and to a magnetic media, such as a magnetic disk. A typical MR head includes a write element, formed as a regular thin film head, and a read element implemented with the MR element. This type of MR head further includes shielding around the MR element to isolate the MR element from extraneous magnetic fields, to narrow the read pulse detected by the MR element, and to divert magnetic flux from the write head away from the MR element to prevent the MR element from operating unreliably.
In certain conventional memory storage devices utilizing a shielded MR head, an undesirable interference phenomenon has been identified in signals read from a magnetic media disposed in the memory storage device using the MR head. The interference phenomenon becomes even more pronounced as the operating frequency of the storage device is increased. In many instances, the interference is sufficient to adversely affect performance of the storage device. It is therefore desirable to reduce, to the extent possible, such interference in the signal picked up by the MR head.